Quote:
Originally Posted by Originalist
I can offer ample proof that this was being said to the the priests. It is interesting you emboldened in black the very words that prove my point. But it really does not matter. The tithing system described here is not for us. Do you disagree with that?
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Malachi 3:5
And I will come near to you to judgment;
and I will be a swift witness
against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers,
and
against those that oppress the hireling in his wages,....
8,9
Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me.
But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee?
In tithes and offerings.
Ye are cursed with a curse: for
ye have robbed me,
even this whole nation[/QUOTE]
The way I understand this is ...
Ye are cursed..(who?) even this whole nation.
Why? (Because ye have robbed me)
In this case the laborers that are working and being robbed are the Levites of their 10%, thus robbing God.
That's why there is a blessing if they return.
McLarens expositions Bible commentary ..
Anew paragraph begins with Malachi 3:7, which is not closely connected with the promises preceding. It recurs to the prevailing tone of Malachi, the rebuke of negligence in attending to the legal obligations of worship. That negligence is declared to be a reason for God’s withdrawal from them. But the ‘return,’ which is promised on condition of their renewed obedience, can scarcely be identified with the coming just foretold. That coming was to bring about offerings of righteousness which should be pleasant to the Lord. This section {Malachi 3:7 - Malachi 3:12} promises blessings as results of such offerings, and a ‘return’ of Jehovah to His people contingent upon their return to Him.
Matthew Henry's concise commentary ..
3:7-12 The men of that generation turned away from God, they had not kept his ordinances. God gives them a gracious call. But they said, Wherein shall we return? God notices what returns our hearts make to the calls of his word. It shows great perverseness in sin, when men make afflictions excuses for sin, which are sent to part between them and their sins.
Barnes notes on the whole Bible..
Shall a man rob or cheat - , defraud God? God answers question by question, but thereby drives it home to the sinner's soul, and appeals to his conscience. The conscience is steeled, and answers again, "In what?" God specifies two things only, obvious, patent, which, as being material things, they could not deny. "In tithes and offerings." The offerings included several classes of dues to God:
(a) the first fruits ;
(b) the annual half-shekel Exodus 30:13-15;
(c) the offerings made for the tabernacle Exodus 25:2-3; Exodus 35:5, Exodus 35:21, Exodus 35:24; Exodus 36:3, Exodus 36:6 and the second temple Ezra 8:25 at its first erection; it is used of ordinary offerings;
(d) of the tithes of their own tithes, which the Levites paid to the priests Numbers 18:26, Numbers 18:28-29;
(e) of the portions of the sacrifice which accrued to the priests Leviticus 7:14.
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